Bakken crude oil transport: Can the people of NY stop a bad idea in its tracks?

If something sounds like a really bad idea, it probably is. Like shipping explosive crude from North Dakota's Bakken shale by rail across New York State to the Port of Albany and putting it on barges on the Hudson River. The Bakken crude is a thick, tar-like substance that is more hazardous than regular crude because its vapors can ignite at lower temperatures.

A train derailment in the town of Lac Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013 killed 47 people and destroyed the center of the vacation town, raising the alarm of the growing crude-by-rail industry that has ballooned as a result of the Midwest oil boom. There also have been explosions in North Dakota and Alabama.

Bakken crude runs through Syracuse on trains operated by CSX, mile-long trains that can carry roughly 85,000 barrels of oil. While New York has not yet seen tragedy at the scale of Lac Megantic, since the beginning of 2014, there have been derailments, inKingston, Buffalo and outside Albany in the town of Selkirk.

The crude-by-rail industry has grown exponentially in recent years. Railroads carried more than 400,000 carloads of crude last year, up from 9,500 in 2008. About 75 percent of Bakken crude production travels by rail, with Albany receiving between 20 to 25 percent of these shipments. New York is technically prevented by federal law from regulating rail freight transportation or car safety standards since this is an issue of interstate commerce. In recent weeks, Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Charles Schumer have come out in support of stronger regulations. Schumer has called the industry's use of outdated tank cars a "ticking time bomb" and has encouraged regulators to replace older cars with models built after 2011.

Cuomo issued an executive order to review the safety concerns with the oil rail cars in January 2014, three years after this industry had already started operating in New York. This action is too little, too late. Safer oil trains are superior to the building more pipelines in the short term. But we have to stop building more fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines and tar sands boilers. Every dollar invested in fossil fuel infrastructure locks us into decades more of fossil fuel dependence, diverting resources from urgently needed investment in clean energy.

A Massachusetts-based Fortune 500 company, Global Companies LLC, began using Albany as a transport hub for Bakken crude in 2011. Recently, Albany residents have raised the alarm about Global's proposal to increase its operations along the Hudson River in the Port of Albany by installing seven new "boilers" to more easily heat and transport the crude. The DEC issued a negative declaration for the project, meaning it determined the action would not have any significant adverse environmental impact, accepting at face value Global's claims that handling more crude would not pose environmental risks. This prompted outrage from citizens groups from the working class neighborhoods surrounding the Port of Albany. Under pressure from Albany residents, the DEC has extended the public comment period on the proposed boilers through April 2. Comments can be sent by email to the DEC atr4dep@gw.dec.state.ny.us.

With Albany residents up in arms, political elites like Cuomo, Schumer, and local elected officials are taking notice and starting to respond. Most recently, on March 12, Albany County issued a moratorium on the expansion of the processing of crude oil at the Port of Albany pending a public health investigation by the Albany County Health Department.

Environmental activists are suspicious that Global is looking at the Hudson River as their version of the Keystone XL pipeline to bring Bakken crude and tar sands oil to refineries along the East Coast. Global representatives will not deny their intent to ship tar sands oil through Albany, simply saying that any types of U.S. and Canadian crude require heat to be put to them because of the viscosity. James Hansen, former head of NASA's Goddard Institute has called the tar sands a "climate bomb" for the amount for greenhouse gases this extreme energy extraction would release into the atmosphere over its lifecycle.

While passenger rail infrastructure has been neglected for decades, regulators are now rolling out the red carpet to reform freight rail.

Joining their voice to the alarm over the increased transport of crude by rail, Railroad Workers United (RWU) has adopted a resolution against the usage of excessively long and heavy trains like the ones used by Global Companies. According to a press release from RWU, these 80-100 car trains are hard to handle and are a danger to railroad crews, track side communities, the environment, motorists, pedestrians, the greater society and the general public. Not going as far as calling for a moratorium on transporting the Bakken crude, RWU supports a reduction in length and tonnage of existing trains hauling hazardous materials.

The irony is that while passenger rail infrastructure has been neglected for decades, regulators are now rolling out the red carpet to reform freight rail in order to keep fossil fuel shipments moving. The only way to really ensure safety is to stop the transports as well as reduce our reliance on fossil fuels which investment in public transit would help accomplish. The known dangerous of crude-by rail create an opportunity to improve both passenger and transport rail. Currently, the NYS Draft Energy Plan, for which NYSERDA is currently accepting public comment until April 30, says far too little about the transportation sector, which accounts for about one-third of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Draft Energy Plan mentions that the Department of Transportation should increase passenger rail, but makes no recommendations for how it will be done. The Energy Plan should contain a plan for a radical increase in more energy-efficient transport of people and freight through electrified freight rails, intra-urban mass transit, inter-urban rails and high-speed rail for longer travel as an alternative to carbon-intensive air travel. The DOT is currently also accepting public comment on its proposal for high-speed rail in New York through March 24.

"Participation - that's what's gonna save the human race." My favorite Pete Seeger quote. Seeger's greatest accomplishment was his successful effort to clean up the Hudson River. The river was a raging sewer when Seeger set out to save it in the 1960s, a dump for industries that grew along its banks, full of PCBs from the electrical industry, sewage discharges, pesticides, and other contaminants. The main traffic at the time were cement and oil barges. Decades later, the cleanup of the Hudson continues and decades later, the Hudson River is once again in danger, this time from barges carrying some of the dirtiest oil on the planet. It's only a matter of time before the Hudson River sees a spill like the one on the Mississippi River in February 2014 just upstream from New Orleans.

Like Pete Seeger, citizens of New York are speaking up against extreme fossil fuel infrastructure like the boilers in the Port of Albany, like the gas compressor stations in on Seneca Lake and in the town of Minisink, like the natural gas pipeline that will longer be built along I-81. Community and labor activists, like those with Railroad Workers United, are sounding the alarm about safety and mobilizing the public to push New York to do its job and protect the environment which our lives depend on.

We need to be there when regulatory agencies shirk their responsibilities, as the DEC did by declaring the boilers for Bakken crude - on the shore of the Hudson River next door to public housing - would have no negative impact. It's up to us to use every tool at our disposal - public comment, protest, voting, political pressure - to help kick our country's tired addiction to fossil fuels and to stop these bad ideas in their tracks.

Ursula Rozum is a guest columnist for The Post-Standard and syracuse.com. She ran for Congress on the Green Party line in 2012.

Be the first to comment

PAUSE is a grassroots group of individuals who have come together to promote safe, sustainable energy and fight for environmental justice. We engage the greater public to stop the fossil fuel industry’s assault on the people of Albany and our environment.